Mrs. H.'s page

Thanks, guys. i think that's what i'll do, then—wait till Sword of Valor, add a few encounters at the beginning, and level them up to 6 shortly thereafter. The time frame of the second half of The Worldwound Incursion is so crunchy. It seems like just the fact of overland travel to Drezen should make it easier to fit stuff in there than in the first book.

Thanks for the tips about the Gray Garrison, too (and Sull's son). i have learned so much from reading this forum. :-)

It makes most sense to me right now that if Hosilla knows the PCs have intel on the safe houses, she'll be motivated to do what she can to fix that before trying to meet up with Vhane. i think i'll see what i can do about that—have her tip off at least one safe house before heading over to the Gray Garrison. i'm not sure if i want her to tip Faxon off as that'll change up that encounter significantly, but it makes most sense. i suppose Faxon might toy with them to see what they know or keep them off-guard until reinforcements show up. Or, since Hosilla doesn't know the new PC, and i don't know if Aravashnial and Anevia will be with them (they were when she saw them before), he might just want to delay until he knows whether these are the ones Hosilla warned him about. (She actually made it out of the tunnels a day and a half or so ahead of them; plenty of time for plottage.)

Am i missing something here? Seems like Irabeth doesn't explain how they know that the Gray Garrison is the place to go.

My players just hit level 3 and are about to emerge into Kenabres. Reading ahead, i am concerned about having them ascend to their first mythic tier at the same time as they hit level 6, especially as one of my players is brand-new to RPGs. She's taken to the roleplaying very readily, but the mechanics are still a bit of a challenge, and as they are leveling up every other session (session = only 3 hours), i know she's not getting enough practice with her abilities before gaining new ones. She's my only new player, but i feel like that's suboptimal for all of them, and it's only going to become more complicated when we add a new rules system on top of everything. i don't know yet whether all the mythic tiers are added in this way, at the same time as levels, but i'm going to do my best to prevent it if so.

For now, though, i'm looking for ways to separate level 6 from tier 1. i'm not awarding XP, but simply leveling them as per the guidelines on the advancement track (page 6), so the challenge is to manage encounters/story development to give them extra time at each level. Ideas i have so far:

• Toss in as many random encounters as possible on their way to Blackwing/wherever.
• Have the PCs accompany the Eagle Watch knights back to Neathholm to seal the alliance with the underdwellers.
• Come up with some side plot regarding Chief Sull's missing son (he's been mentioned a time or two anyway, so i ought to come up with something, although i don't know what yet).
• Have them level up halfway through the Gray Garrison (although i'm betting it won't take more than 3 sessions to do the whole thing, so that might still be a tad quick).
• Ignore that last level-up and just have them hit 6th level early on in Sword of Valor. It doesn't look like they'll be underpowered if they start book 2 at 5th/1st.

i need to reintroduce them to Hosilla at some point, too, as she escaped with Radiance in our last session (and she'd rather not rejoin Vhane without sealing the security leak from the info-dump note). i don't know that that'd be enough to stretch out the encounters, though.

Thoughts?

Oh, Wild Arcana/Inspired Spell. Gotcha. Yeah, those are pretty crazy—especially with the caster being treated as two levels higher, even if they are restricted to a spell level they can cast.

Aldarionn,

What do you mean by "the ability to have access to every spell in the game"? i think this is something i haven't run across yet.

This is somewhat discouraging to read as a new DM who has been greatly enjoying the first book of WotR. My PCs just hit 3rd level and haven't yet become mythic, so i wonder what changes if any i should consider before they ascend. i know that i'll always end up finding a need to tweak things as i go, but i'd rather not give them something awesome and then nerf it if i can simply avoid giving them something overpowered in the first place.

i don't want to scrap Mythic entirely, as my players and i are all looking forward to it, but i wonder if a middle ground would work. Any thoughts on whether progressing the PCs along the mythic path at half pace would be a good solution? (i know we wouldn't get through all 10 tiers that way.)

i'm so grateful to see all the ideas and recommendations on how to bring Hosilla back in. i still haven't had a chance to read ahead in the AP, but extra perspectives, especially as i know you guys are talking from experience, will make it all the easier to sort through the options as i go.

Staunton Vhane invokes both Deskari and Baphomet in his terrible info-dump note, so it seems to me that there must be a relationship between the cultists of each—maybe not one based on doctrine or which they want to see ascend, but based on overlapping goals and strategy. i could see something working out with Hosilla involving herself with a pack of Deskari cultists. (She'd probably just take over anyway, or do her best to; i imagine she's extra scary when she's on the run like she is now.) Or, i don't know whether it'd be doable to just say that the Garrison is full of Baphomet cultists instead, since i don't know what all the ramifications of changing that detail would be.

Seannoss, i am pretty firm on my no-resurrection rule, but you make a good point that i'll have to think about why there are so many mythic heroes lying about. What i told my players when we first started is that replacement characters will automatically match APL, but that mythic tiers are not automatic, so we'll have to discuss offline how they might have ascended (and, depending on how far in we are at the time, progressed). So far my only PC death has been before anyone has become mythic, which makes things easier this time, but you're right that mythic heroes are supposed to be even rarer than regular heroes, who are already exceptional. One option might simply be that Iomedae is now invested in the party and anyone else who merits her attention will find themselves being led in a direction that will eventually result in them meeting up with the others. As the PCs aren't supposed to realize at first that she's watching and rewarding them, it would be fairly easy, i think, to hand-wave that; it wouldn't have to be overt.

And no, the players seem to have forgotten the missing guards, but the way Hosilla took over the place suggests to me that they wouldn't mind leaving her to her fate. So i'm just going to say that they ditched when they saw a chance. Maybe they'll show up again; maybe not.

Raltus: Nice. i love it when creative solutions pay off like that; i bet your players really enjoyed that.

Wow, i am grateful to all of you who took the time to read my extremely long post. It turned out a lot longer than i meant, and i really appreciate you reading through it despite its length.

Seannoss, you make a good point about the AP's written balance of loot. Given that this one is Mythic i guess shouldn't be too surprised if it ends up being both overpowered and overly lucrative. Now it occurs to me also that if the PCs had managed to kill Hosilla and the four missing guards, they would have ended up with even more loot, so the AP probably did take that into account. Good call. (Even if the guards didn't have much on them, more = more.)

i appreciate you saying that this is a tough gig for a new DM. i don't think i had any idea what i was getting into when i picked it—i just liked the story. Getting my feet wet has turned into sloshing through a river up to my armpits, but you know—we are all having fun, and i am learning a lot. So thanks for the encouragment. :-)

MurphysParadox: Good ideas. i've got a side conversation going with a few other DMs i know and they are all saying the same thing about hitting pause if the PCs rush in, and if they don't listen, let them learn the hard way. It's really helpful to hear so much consensus on that. Most issues seem to be very situational or preference-based, and having one tried and true solution i can work on implementing helps me tremendously.

i've outlawed resurrection or anything like it in my campaigns—i simply don't like it; i feel death should be permanent or else it isn't something to take seriously—so unfortunately, the cost of resurrecting something won't help with redistributing PC wealth. But it's starting to sound like i don't need to worry overmuch about that.

i really like the idea of Hosilla coming back at the PCs with a motive for targeting them. If she took the sword with her (and maybe that was a mistake), she'd be facing less trouble for leaving them alive than if she'd lost it too, but that sword is probably a minor concern compared to them knowing the location of all three safehouses in Kenabres (along with the passphrase... that was a seriously embarrassing info-dump, but i had too many things going on last night to bother trying to fix that.)

JohnHawkins: Ooh, Hosilla at one of the safe houses or the Grey Garrison is not a bad idea. i will definitely read ahead with that in mind.

Your story about the long-dead PC made me laugh out loud. :-D

That's very helpful to hear you speak out of your own current game experience. And wow, that is a ton of cash. i will definitely not worry about the extra PC equipment, then. Another helpful consensus, it seems!

Yeah, i seem to have the wrong mix of players for some of this loot to make any sense. When they encountered Millorn, they basically killed him in his bedroom while he was fleeing for his life (one PC ended up with the nickname "House Call Murderess" over that one), and then they didn't even loot him (the cleric and sorceress didn't allow it, actually, after the ruthless murderizing)—but as none of them could make use of a wizard's spellbook it was sort of moot. The paladin sword was looking to me like it was going to be another really awesome thing that nobody would care about, too. They could easily offload it, but there goes a great hook.

Okay guys, one last thing: i think i feel pretty good about everything (seriously, thank you so much!) except the missing guards. Two of them could simply have not existed, but the other two were the ones who'd captured the sorceress and rogue, so the PCs knew they were there and didn't find any egress to explain their disappearance. (To be fair, it seems the players forgot about them utterly, so i might be worrying about this more than is necessary.) i think i'm going to have to say that there was a secret passageway that the PCs didn't discover (they were in a huge hurry to get out), because otherwise this just doesn't make any sense. Although i am still trying to puzzle through for my own sake WHY they would escape through the secret passageway at all when they had just captured two people with hardly a scuffle; i would think they'd be feeling confident after that, rather than worried enough to run away. i suppose they did realize that there were more PCs upstairs, and they weren't particularly loyal to Hosilla (especially after she'd killed their leader and his lady), so maybe they just figured now was a good opportunity to get lost and leave that unfortunate woman to her fate?

i'll probably end up going with that, but if anyone has other ideas i'd be glad to have them.

Again, everyone, thank you so much for all your comments. i really appreciate it.

WARNING: This is really long.

So, The Plan: i wrote up a set of narratives for each captured PC. One of them was knocked unconscious while being taken captive, so hers was less detailed, but the other's was two pages of being searched and bound and tied to the leg of a stone table in the extremely bloody kitchen, so by the time Hosilla showed up and cast Persuasive Goad, she was good and terrified. (This was the tiefling sorceress, who had nothing but Acid Splash for combat spells because she's a pacifist and a chef. i was really not wanting to kill her because i'm fascinated to see how that will turn out.) So Hosilla, being paranoid, asked who sent her, and when Rasia said "Nobody! i swear!" Hosilla said, "Do you take me fore an idiot? Who do you work for?" Rasia did her best to explain that she'd just fallen down with these people during the battle upstairs and they were just trying to get to the surface, and Hosilla asked which one of the party was the assassin and Rasia had NO idea how to answer that. The player and i were passing notes for this; the idea was that he and i (and the rogue's player and i) could get that done while the other players decided what they wanted to do, so that everything more or less worked out in real time, but the player of the dead cleric hadn't had a chance to finish his new character yet, so basically he finished that up while we were note-passing, and the other two did a little chatting about strategy but it wasn't all simultaneous like i imagined.

Then, Uziel was supposed to come in and tell Hosilla that the guards said there were more PCs up the ladder, as the rogue was yelling to the fighter, and the narrative read that Hosilla asked Rasia how many there were but Rasia was a little worse for wear at the time and couldn't properly answer. (Turns out the player agreed with that, given the fear and torture, so the nauseated condition and -1 to Int and Con that i assigned as a result of torture wasn't even necessary to make her incapable of providing good intel.) So Hosilla went over to the rogue (the angry 13-year-old) and said, "How many are with you? Answer or you will suffer pain!" And the Adaline said "Why should i tell you?" and Hosilla made good on her threat. (Adaline had a dislocated shoulder from the scuffle of being captured; i gave her -2 to Dex and Str.)

That all went pretty well, i think. Then we switched over to the rest of the party. i have been having a hard time doing the NPC role-playing (so many personalities to worry about, and playing an NPC feels so different from playing a PC), but i think i did a pretty good job at it this time around.

Falthera (the fighter) had been in H4 and heard Adaline screaming to her, so she looked down the rope ladder just in time to see Rasia being muscled away. She called Laried (the inquisitor) in from H2 and told him what little she knew, and he was all ready to throw himself down the ladder and do something about this, despite having 5hp and no way to improve that. (His player has been really laid-back, and it was awesome to see him get so passionate about this.) Meanwhile, the NPCs are all still in H3, so Aravashnial hadn't even been able to overhear this, so he was loudly demanding that someone get back in there right now and explain what was going on, and he and Laried got into it. Aravashnial is an arrogant Riftwarden about to be left, blind in a corner, by these morons. Laried wasn't about to waste time, and Falthera was right behind him, so when Aravashnial called for them to come back, Laried flatly refused. So Aravashnial actually summoned a constrictor to bring one or both of them back if necessary, which was somewhat funny as they didn't realize at first where the snake had come from. "It won't hurt you if you come back here." "Oooh... it's HIS snake." Falthera went back, and he said "Now look. i appreciate that you have been taking on the dangers we've faced while we've been down here, but i ought not to have allowed that and clearly my negligence has proven catastrophic. Now tell me exactly what the situation is, who is left, and what they're able to do, and we'll make a plan." He insisted on going down with them. Horgus threw a fit at that point. Clearly, this was a fool's errand and everyone down the ladder was already dead anyway; they should just leave them. They'd only die in the attempt to rescue the obviously dead PCs anyway. So i got to roleplay him arguing with Aravashnial, which was less weird than i thought it would be. (i got to roleplay a little of Lann, too; Horgus didn't want to be left alone upstairs with "that," which Lann didn't appreciate.) All in all, i think the roleplaying of NPCs went really well. Much better than i expected. i mean, i talk to myself all the time, but roleplaying conversations between multiple NPCs feels super awkward.

In the end, Horgus stayed upstairs (he locked himself in the pantry), Lann went back for reinforcements, and the others went downstairs. Aravashnial levitated down the ladder, and he handed Anevia his spell components so that i didn't end up playing both of them, and Rasia's player ended up handling the constrictor, so it wasn't too complicated after all. Then there was some hedging about who was going down the ladder first, so Aravashnial kept up the obnoxious party-leader attitude by pointing out that the snake wasn't persistent and they had better get a move on while it was still around to be useful, and Laried said "Whatever, i'm halfway down the ladder already."

This, though, is where things got weird. They went through the guard room (H6) and when they got to the doorway to the dining/common room (H7) i started describing what they'd see through the doorway, and Laried went right in. My original intent was that Hosilla and Uziel would already be there by then, but he just walked in. i have had this problem more than once and i need to figure out how to just roll with it—but if PCs walk into a room before i'm finished describing it, it seems like the room has to be empty of adversaries. Otherwise, it feels like they just pop into existence as the PCs enter, which twists my brains around regarding surprise rounds and all that. i don't know why i get that way, but it keeps happening. So since the room was obviously "empty" when Laried entered, the only thing to do was let them roll Perception and Stealth to see if they could hear Hosilla and Uziel in the kitchen (H8) or vice versa, and yeah, everyone could hear everyone, so Hosilla and Uziel came out but Laried rushed them and so the battle did not go remotely as planned—ESPECIALLY as i COMPLETELY FORGOT the two guards from H6 AND the two from H7. Yes. FOUR mongrelmen who apparently disappeared into thin air as soon as they brought the captives to Hosilla. The PCs ought to have run smack into Hosilla and her gang as they entered H7, and there should have been FOUR MORE combatants in the mix, but instead the whole thing was sort of dumb. i swapped Uziel's stats out for the "Noble Indiscretion" NPC pregen (fighter 1/rogue 1), but even with that, forgetting those extra four guards meant the fight was not as awesome as i'd planned. To be fair, it was going to be hard to make it a balanced fight anyway, with such a weird party makeup.

Besides that, though, i decided that Uziel would be wielding Radiance, and that if things went south, Hosilla would lean over to him and whisper something, grab the sword, take her potion of invisibility and just jet. i imagined this tragic, heroic thing where Uziel's eyes go wide ("Noooooo!") as he realizes she's abandoning him to be killed, and all he can do is whip out his dagger from his spring-loaded wrist sheath and fight for the remainder of his doomed life (in my mind it all happened in slow-motion), but instead one of the PCs got a critical hit on him and he went down pretty quickly. So then Hosilla did lean down and grab his sword (after taking the potion of invisibility), and i gave the PCs fair opportunities to try Perceiving her as she made good her escape, so the end result was the same—Hosilla escaped with Radiance, and Uziel bled out on the stone floor—but in a much, much less epic way than i imagined.

So then they found Rasia and Adaline. Rasia had ZERO interest in doing anything other than getting out of that horrible place as quickly as possible, especially since Hosilla had disappeared and they couldn't find her ("That woman was mean" was repeated several times). So Adaline, Rasia, Aravashnial, and Anevia went back up the ladder (Aravashnial is very concerned about all of this, including Rasia herself, who was so shaken that she's considering Burning Hands or Shocking Grasp for her new spell instead of Charm Person as planned). Adaline passed out at the top of the ladder, as she'd been at 0hp (technically she should have passed out long before she got to the ladder at all, but we didn't think of that). i think they would have left all the loot, note and all, down in Hosilla's room except they hadn't seen the dead cleric's body yet and Laried didn't want to leave him if he was in any way alive, so he ransacked the place while Falthera tried to get him to stop and just come up so they could get the heck out, but in the end they did get everything. (Including all of the captured AND dead PCs' belongings, and i really ought to have had some things go missing, but i didn't think of that either. And the Rasia's weasel, Spice, made his stealth check, so he had skittered off into the shadows and came back later.) i think Laried ended up just grabbing Uziel's corpse rather than looting him properly, as Falthera was nagging him to stop looting and just go. (Seriously. These players.)

Then when they got to the top, Lann was just arriving with backup, including the new character—a deaf half-elf life oracle who happened to have fallen through during the battle and had made his way to Neathholm just in time to "overhear" (he reads lips) that some healing was needed.

So the end result is that everyone (except the dead cleric) survived, and i think i played the NPCs quite well, and everyone really got into it and were very happy to level up afterwards. So despite not being able to have everything happen in parallel as i'd planned, and the new PC not really having an opportunity to show up until the end, and one terrible misplay (the missing mongrelmen), all in all it was a smashing success.

Now then:

1) What in the world happened to those four mongrelman guards?
2) Should i be concerned about all this excess loot? (They got not only their own stuff back, but all of the dead cleric's and Uziel's.)
3) i am not sure if i should feel bad about Hosilla making off with that sword. It made more sense when i thought he'd be alive (or at least conscious and fighting) when she took it.

Bathmat: LOL!

Our next session is Monday the 28th. i will definitely post an update. You guys have given me some great ideas to think through, and i really appreciate it.

Oh—nonlethal and ability damage. Good thinking.

Unfortunately, the party has used every one of the potions Chief Sull gave them, and pretty quickly, too. But that wand of False Life—good call.

You're also right to point out that Hosilla would be very concerned about enemies camped on her doorstep. She's in a fairly defensible location now, in that the PCs have to go down the rope ladder single-file and can easily be picked off (as the dead and captured ones were), but while that same bottleneck will affect her if she goes up, she also has no egress. If the PCs don't leave, or if they figure out a way to get down the ladder without being picked off, her defensible location is going to become her grave. i would guess that would leave her feeling pretty urgent, no matter what questions she's got for the two captives. And good suggestion on making the three from the watchtower into rangers.

i like your backstory on how your new PC showed up. My player's new character isn't fully developed yet, so i don't know how his campaign traits and backstory might play into things, but as he's a Neathholm native i think it'll be pretty easy to either pick him up if they go back to rest, or send Lann for reinforcements. But your story is great.

Asking the players outright is a good suggestion, as is handling the interrogations via email.

How much of the area did they defeat? H1-H4, and H10. They didn't look into H5 well enough to find anything there and decided it looked unpleasant, so ignored it. Once they cleared H2, they did a magic-and-evil sweep and detected both in H4 and H10, so opened both doors (thankfully not simultaneously) and found the cultists in H10. They killed one and the other fled. i think the unidentified potion was from one of the cultists. (Next time they level up they'll probably be better at identifying things. Of the party members capable of Detect Magic, only one has ranks in Spellcraft; they are learning why that's a bad idea.)

i don't remember how many hp the remaining players have. i know the rogue is at exactly 0, and the others are well below full, but i'd have to double check on that.

Lann is actually with them; sending him for help is a good idea. Aravashnial is also going to be helpful. i forgot all about his potions. He and the sorceress were getting along pretty well, and she was keeping him distracted so he wouldn't become obnoxious, and now her capture will definitely make him start trying to take the lead (both because his new buddy has been captured, and because he's no longer distracted and CLEARLY these guys need a professional). Unfortunately, my players as a group are a little passive, so they might actually let him call the shots. i'd really rather not play both sides! But you're right that he should definitely come into play, with potions if nothing else, and i know his preference is to go down that rope ladder, blind and everything, and show people how it's done, so we'll see what happens. At least my players will receive conflicting input from the NPCs. Horgus isn't remotely interested in going down any rope ladder, and Anevia is likely to vacillate. She just wants to get back to the surface. Whether making a run for it or rescuing the captives first will be quickest/best is arguable. So hopefully with those differing viewpoints, the players will recognize their need to make the decisions.

If the sentries from H6 realize there are more people up in H4—which they should, as the rogue was yelling for help before she was knocked out—that might give Hosilla a reason to put the captives on ice for awhile while dealing with the rest of the party. Sure, they're in bad shape, but they can always run away, and they do have NPCs with skills (i forgot to break Anevia's leg in the first session and never managed to rectify that, so she's actually at full ability, unfortunately or otherwise). If i can keep Hosilla occupied for awhile doing something other than interrogating, that'll help me out. Roleplaying her in the role of captor is tricky enough without having the captives occupy her full attention for hours. She's going to get tired of them really quickly, which is part of the problem—how to mount a rescue attempt BEFORE she kills them off but AFTER the other PCs have regained some fighting ability.

Good call on switching out items when convenient, too. i'm considering swapping some of Hosilla's spells as well. No harm if she hasn't used any yet.

DrDeth, that's exactly my quandary. It seems that murderizing them is exactly what any Big Bad would do, especially one who's paranoid, and especially as keeping them alive is high risk/low reward. My problem is that i as a DM feel it isn't fair to just whack PCs. And i as a player wouldn't appreciate that, either. As you said, it's a game and it should be fun. But you're right to suggest asking the players what they'd prefer. And i appreciate your insight about temporary characters.

Lloyd, thanks; i'll do that.

Thanks, guys.

This might be inexperience talking, but i'm not overly concerned about the split party. The idea i have right now is that Hosilla will prefer to keep the two captives separate, so they can't help each other escape and so she can question them separately. So that requires me to deal with the two players separately, which almost makes things easier. In order for each captive not to overhear the conversation Hosilla is having with the other captive, i can handle interrogation/PC actions via note-passing. Sure, that'll slow down gameplay for the other half of the party, but i can effectively have both halves of the party active simultaneously. That just leaves me with how Hosilla acts.

You've given me some other ideas, though, which are helpful to think through. i hadn't thought of giving any of the players temporary characters while resolving this (goodness knows there are enough NPCs to go around already in play). And the deus ex machina options hadn't occurred to me. The player of the dead cleric is planning a mongrelman oracle, who can be picked up easily enough if the uncaptured group goes back to Neathholm to recharge; grabbing a few extra townies of reasonable level for the captured characters' players to take on could easily be handled.

i also appreciate the suggestion of posting in the AP-specific subforum. i don't want to violate any anti-cross-posting rules, though, so should i see about getting this thread moved? How do i do that?

Laure's players: DO NOT READ.

i'm a relatively new DM (have only run a few single-session things so far), and have recently started running Wrath of the Righteous. At our last session, my players threw me for a loop. Long story short, the cleric ended up dead, and the sorcerer (a pacifist charmer chef) and the rogue (an angry 13-year-old) ended up captured/surrendering to the traitorous underdwellers in H6.

The remaining two party members (inquisitor and fighter) are upstairs with the NPCs, and all four PCs are low on hit points, and out of healing and spells. They've been told they're welcome to return to Neathholm to rest up and whatnot, and they might do that, but i'm less concerned with what that part of the group does than how to handle the two captured PCs. Splitting the party aside, i'm almost wishing i'd just killed them all off outright, as i am having a hard time working through how to roleplay Hosilla as a captor. None of what i can find that's been written about her gives me much to go on. i've found some good info on Baphomet, but i'm not sure whether/how to work that stuff in as part of any interrogation that happens. Plus, they don't know anything she'd be interested in that i can think of, so how long could interrogation go on before she decides to just kill them? i want to give the rest of the party time to put together a rescue mission, but that kind of time is going to be hard to fill up.

i'm still getting the hang of how to manage the story and players and a half-dozen NPCs all at one time, and although i'm enjoying it, it's a little overwhelming. What i'm hoping for is a few people who are more familiar with the AP than i am, or have more DM experience, or both, who can help me think through my options. How do you handle captured PCs? What's up with Hosilla?

Hey there,

Is there any chance a feat tree could be added to the PRD? It'd be a great help.

Thanks!